Health Care Pt. 2

First I think it is important for me to say that I commend the president for pushing health care reform. Someone had to initiate these talks and he certainly has done that. Nothing this major has been tried for well over a decade. We had a republican president and democrat congress for part of that time although there was a 2 year period where republicans had a majority in congress and nothing was done.

There is a lot of talk concerning preexisting conditions. No in order to prevent insurance from not accepting those with preexisting conditions, basically means the requirement of everyone citizen to have health insurance. Can't just let people wait till they get sick to go and get health insurance. That throws an automatic loss on to a companies books and is not fair at all. I also understand why insurance currently makes it very difficult for someone with a preexisting condition to get anything affordable. So it seems to me that you must have a public option or free health care if you make this practice illegal.

That would bring us to a public option which I am completely against. It seems like a way to a single payer system in the future. As time goes on and costs spiral for the public option the government will simply change the rules to make this system more affordable and favorable for them. Furthermore, how can a private company compete with the government? Government makes the rules. Government has an unlimited budget. Government doesn't have to make a profit. Government has far less business related costs. I heard the president say they will do things to even out the playing field. Yet, in a bill so large it seems that many loop holes will remain. And why would we believe the government can control costs of something as large as this? The president says he won't pass anything that adds to the budget but I don't see how a public option won't. You will have a heavy influx of people who you will now have to pay for. How much can those who can't afford it now really pay? And how much will you have to supplement them? We already give people money in this country when they don't make enough money. Now we will be giving them more. Also won't people try and go to the doctor more frequently? I just don't see the balanced budget occurring without all the extremely optimistic savings they expect coming to fruition.

Democrats and liberals say the public option will create competition to drive down costs. Republicans and conservatives have other methods that they think will create competition such as removing state to state borders. Neither of these answer the question I have. Why does it cost so much? If the cost of health care does not come down nothing else seems to matter. So why not just focus on bringing down cost? All this can't just be blamed on the insurance companies. I heard on the radio recently that insurance companies have relatively low profit margins compared to other industries. I hope that congress doesn't vilify CEOs of this industry like they did AIG. Their salary and bonus information was requested by congress. Seems like their is only one good reason to want that information.

This brings me to looking at tort reform. Tort is any wrongdoing for which an action for damages may be brought. Lawsuits basically. The cost of doing business for doctors is so high because of the insurance they have to pay for themselves. They often practice defensive medicine because of this. Why not cap the amount suits can be for? Or something. The law suits and things are getting out of hand. Tort reform seems like it should be one of the first things on the table.

And where are the health care providers going to come from? We already have a shortage without all the uncovered. Fewer medical students want to become primary care doctors because there is no money to be made, but primary care physicians are the first line of health care. This means there is a definite need for more primary care doctors, otherwise even if more people have insurance where will they get the care? For those who do have it, this may end up creating more of a wait for you.

I'm just bringing up things that I have thought about and that I think we should all be concerned with. In the end, no system will be perfect. We must hope that are political leaders put their differences aside and truly work together to come up with the best bill possible. At this point, they have not done that. In fact, since the new administration has come in things have been very partisan. 90% support from one side and 5% support from the other. Being the centrist that I am, legislation of this magnitude being forced through by one side would be very disappointing. It would probably cause my voting to change in the coming years.